Circulation

Olney-based Sandy Spring Bank warned Wednesday that counterfeit cashier's checks bearing the institution's name and routing number are in circulation. The company has notified the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., a government corporation that guarantees bank deposits, of the counterfeit checks. The checks use the bank's routing number – 055001096 – and display an inaccurate security feature. According to Sandy Spring, the fake checks display a security feature statement embedded in a darkened top border and along the bottom border, between two padlock icons.

The Towson Times took home nine awards Friday in the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association editorial contest, including a "Best of Show," meaning it was superior to the first-place winners from other circulation divisions. The Baltimore Sun Media Group's community newspapers, which compete in smaller circulation divisions, won more than 80 awards. The Towson Times competes in the division of non-dailies over 20,000 circulation. In that division, Jon Meoli's story on a Towson High senior stunning the audience and her classmates when she sang "An Chloe," an opera piece by Mozart, which earned her a standing ovation, was named Best of Show.

The Baltimore Sun's average daily circulation for the six months ended March 31 fell 9.6 percent, compared with a year earlier, as declines in newspaper sales continued for most of the nation's biggest publishers, the Audit Bureau of Circulations said Monday. Average daily newspaper circulation declined 7.1 percent among 395 U.S. dailies. Sunday circulation fell an average 5.4 percent at 557 U.S. newspapers, the ABC said. Paid circulation declined to 210,098 at The Baltimore Sun. Sunday circulation fell 5.8 percent, to 351,243, ABC reported.

Downtown Towson is on the cusp of a building boom that will transform this suburban county seat into one of the most dynamic, cosmopolitan communities in Maryland. All the elements are in place for this transformation. Towson has two institutions of higher education, Towson University and Goucher College, that not only provide world-class learning but also a work force that stabilizes the commercial core. Residential developments like Towson Green will make sure the downtown area does not become a ghost town after sunset and on the weekends.

A funny thing has been happening at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in recent years. Its budget has been cut, and the number of volumes checked out has declined, but more people are using the system than ever before.According to Pratt spokeswoman Averil Kadis, the library system had 929,410 library visits in 1988. In 1992, the number rose to nearly 1.5 million.That's why she believes that "Baltimore would like to be 'The City That Reads.' I think the average citizen thinks that education and reading are important.

The Baltimore Sun Co. reported today its largest circulation increase in four years, as average circulation for its two daily newspapers rose to 339,630 for the six months that ended Sept. 30.The increase, almost 3,000 copies, was the fourth-highest percentage gain among newspapers in the nation's top 20 markets and was driven by the largest morning circulation increase among U.S. major dailies. Circulation for the Sunday Sun also showed gains in the past six months, rising by about 4,300 copies, to an average of 485,210.

The Baltimore Sun Co. said yesterday that it has appointed Robert T. O'Sullivan to the position of vice president and circulation director.Mr. O'Sullivan, who previously was vice president and circulation director for Gannett Suburban Newspapers of White Plains, N.Y., will oversee circulation sales and growth, transportation, distribution, packaging and customer service in his new job.He fills a position previously held by John Patinella, who was promoted in...

AN ARTICLE last week about a significant decline in The Sun's circulation hit many inside and outside the newspaper hard. The Sun's average circulation declined 11.3 percent daily and 8.5 percent on Sundays in the six months from October 2004 through March 2005 compared with the same period 12 months before, the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) reported. By comparison, the average circulation for all U.S. newspapers fell 1.9 percent daily and 2.5 percent Sunday. A year ago, The Sun reported that circulation had fallen 1.1 percent daily and was up 0.1 percent Sunday.

The Baltimore Sun Co. named Guy L. Gilmore vice president of circulation yesterday.Gilmore had been circulation director at the Portland Oregonian since 1996. In that time, the newspaper had back-to-back years of circulation growth. Gilmore also launched an incentive program for home delivery agents and improved customer service.Gilmore will be responsible for leading The Sun's effort to increase circulation and maintain the highest quality customer service.Before working at the Oregonian, Gilmore headed circulation at the morning Tennessean and the afternoon Nashville Banner.

The Baltimore Sun's daily circulation fell 5.9 percent during the six months that ended Sept. 30, reflecting a trend among the nation's major metropolitan newspapers, even as the paper's Web site saw substantial gains in its readership. Daily print circulation in the industry declined an average 4.6 percent, with Sunday circulation down 4.8 percent, the Audit Bureau of Circulations said. All of the nation's top 25 newspapers reported average daily circulation drops, except for USA Today and The Wall Street Journal.

Lois G. Caplan, a retired library supervisor and film buff, died Dec. 25 of cancer at her Arnold home. She was 71. A daughter of dungaree manufacturers, the former Lois Gloria Simons was born and raised in Philadelphia, where she graduated in 1960 from North Philadelphia's Olney High School. After training as a laboratory technician, she worked at Philadelphia General Hospital. She married Ivan Lee Caplan in 1964, and they moved to Pikesville. Since 1979, they lived in Arnold.

What a thrill to watch the Orioles play these two divisional series games, each with late endings due to rain delays, and to still find coverage and photos in The Sun at 7 a.m. next morning, delivered to our front door! Having the pictures of action, players and fans, as well as reporters' perspectives to describe all that went on is priceless. I've bought extra newspapers and mailed them to relatives who are Orioles fans in Texas, Virginia and Florida. What collectors items! And I've bought them for my 5-year-old grandchildren, who devour the photographs, posters and Orioles advertisements and hang them in their rooms.

Most who ride the St. Charles Avenue streetcar through New Orleans' Garden District are immediately smitten, not only by the city's charm but also by the convenience and nostalgia of the historic trolley. Many other cities, Baltimore included, have tried to offer light rail as a more modern take on that classic form of street-level transportation. So it's not surprising that many folks who live in Charles Village and other points along Charles Street are taken by the notion of a streetcar running through their neighborhood, too. Eighty years ago, Baltimore was a city that largely ran on streetcars, with more than 400 miles of track crisscrossing the city, including portions of Charles and St. Paul streets in Charles Village.

Plans to get mass transit to the communities north of Pennsylvania Station are proceeding on parallel tracks. A one-year-old, grass-roots campaign to establish streetcar service along the Charles Street corridor and south to the Inner Harbor is still at the door-knocking, leaflet-passing stage. Meanwhile, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake is driving the bus - figuratively - to extend the Charm City Circulator's Purple Line from the train station to 33rd Street. She made the proposal part of her State of the City address in February and reiterated her support last week at a Charles Village community meeting.

Dr. Reubin Andres, a retired gerontologist who challenged commonly circulated height-weight tables for the elderly and conducted diabetes research, died of complications from heart disease Sunday at his Lake Roland-area home. He was 89. Dr. Andres believed that it was preferable to begin life lean and gradually put on weight in the middle of life. Colleagues said this position challenged the diet industry and other physicians. "He was a great problem-solver," said a friend, Dr. Jordan Tobin, the retired chief of the applied physiology section of the National Institute on Aging, who lives in Cleveland.

An unattended Charm City Circulator bus hit five vehicles and a building Saturday afternoon, Baltimore police said. Shortly before 3 p.m., the bus was parked on the 1500 block of North Charles Street, which is near Penn Station, when "for whatever reason, it drifted backward into traffic," Det. Donny Moses said. The bus hit five vehicles that were stopped at the red light, he said. It also struck a light pole before hitting a building at 1420 N. Charles St. Several people had minor injuries, Moses said.

The Baltimore Sun Co. yesterday announced the appointment of Scott H. Frantzen as vice president of circulation, a position in which he will be responsible for leading The Sun's circulation growth."

Most major daily newspapers continued to lose circulation in the six-month period ending March 31, though readership of some papers is increasing because of their growing online audiences, according to industry reports released yesterday. Average daily circulation at 770 of the nation's newspapers fell 2.6 percent for the six-month period ending March 31, about the same percentage as for the last reporting period in November, according to a report released by the Audit Bureau of Circulations and analyzed by the Newspaper Association of America.

Some staff and students are calling on the University of Maryland to boot Chick-fil-A off the College Park campus, making it the newest front in the war between gay-rights activists and the fast-food chain. An online petition calls Chick-fil-A a "bigoted and hateful" company and asks the university to end its partnership with the chain after its president, Dan Cathy, told a Christian newspaper and radio station that he opposes same-sex marriage. Rodrigo Lozada, co-president of the University of Maryland Pride Alliance, said in an email Monday that the petition will send "a message to University officials that students want a campus that is more inclusive and accepting and one that isn't hypocritical.

Amid growing ridership of the free Circulator and calls for more routes, Annapolis officials plan to expand the trolley service beyond the city's downtown. Weekend and special event service could be added as early as August to link Eastport and West Annapolis to the downtown area. No start dates have been set, but officials said plans are in the works. It would be a boost for businesses in the two sections and residents near the downtown area and the tourist-filled Historic District, said Mayor Joshua Cohen.